


put me in the dirt let me be with the stars

by AdhdBarryAllen, DCButGayer



Series: The Road To Justice League Obscure [2]
Category: Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Lesbian Zinda Blake, Polyamory, Team as Family, World War II, aka my brand, so is guy, zinda is also jewish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15960017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdhdBarryAllen/pseuds/AdhdBarryAllen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DCButGayer/pseuds/DCButGayer
Summary: Part two of a collection of one shots introducing the main characters Justice League Obscure.(Can be read with or without knowledge of JLO, because it's basically just another telling of Zinda Blake's life story)





	put me in the dirt let me be with the stars

**Author's Note:**

> oh look... its... _another character study!!_ about zinda, too! i'm predictable.  
>  i wrote this as sort of an introduction to zinda blake for people who arent as familiar with her, so it shouldn't be too hard to enjoy it no matter what level of understanding you have of her :D  
> this oneshot is part of a series introducing the main characters of Justice League Obscure, which is part of the DC But Gayer project where dissatisfied gays rewrite dc. JLO follows a collection of our favorite unappreciated characters and makes them into a dream team, its pretty cool. there's going to be a oneshot for each of the main characters setting up where they are in life before the series actually starts, i'm hella exited.  
> you can find more about the project on our [tumblr](https://dcbutgayer.tumblr.com/)  
> thank you to jo and fern for editing!!  
> oh also warnings for ww2/the holocaust. its not graphic but its there so be careful <3

Zinda Blake has been many things.

She’s been a child in an age of depression and poverty, taking up a route as a paperboy and proudly bringing home scraped knees and a few extra dollars to her mother. Her mother was always grateful for the extra funds, but less happy about her only daughter running around with a pack of ‘no-good boys’ as she’d call it. She’s been a university student, attending a nice Jewish institution that her mother approved of and studying what all women of the time got their degree in: how to be a good wife. She spent less time worrying about if she’d get good marks on her projects and worried more about what it would be like to kiss her sorority sister Penny Van Camp, what it would all mean.

Most of all, she’s been a soldier. Zinda has been a soldier in the second World War, a war her entire country supported. A war that she’d been made to believe was just. And it was, if any war can be called just, but her country did not send her to fight to save the lives of her people, they sent her to fight to save their own reputation. Her country neglected to tell them about the rebellions of so many brave Jewish people, that she saw with her own eyes. Her government didn’t care about who they were fighting this war to save, not really. If they did they would honored the Jewish lives who died fighting instead of showing yet another film promoting their war bonds. She knows she _did_ save lives, but when it’s late and she struggles to find sleep she wonders how many innocent lives she took in the process.

Out of everything of her past that has shaped her, Zinda has never stopped being a soldier. She’s fought under many different causes, yes, but she’s a soldier all the same.

She was loyal to the Blackhawks from the moment she met them, despite their hesitance to allow a woman into their ranks. But Zinda was never one to give up so easy, and so she proved herself to be more capable than any of them, becoming the first Lady Blackhawk. Those guys, they really were a family, and that’s what Zinda had needed. She fought her last battle alongside them knowing it would change the world, but at the time failed to realize how much it would change _her_.

The weather that night was nothing but bad omens, crashing thunder and dark, swirling clouds. Under no circumstances would it have been proper weather for flying, but Zinda and the Blackhawks were a unit of fighter pilots trained for any circumstance. She’d flown through a rough patch of clouds expecting to come out the other side with her teammates, but instead she’d found herself on a battlefield of a whole other caliber. One on the edge of space and time where all the clocks were set to zero. Confused and disoriented, her plane took a bad hit and spiraled out of control, and the only thing she could think of before impact was how she’d never get to tell her Mama she was sorry before she died.

But Zinda didn’t die that night. Instead, a man in a suit of red armor that looked to be like something out of a pulp science fiction novel came to her rescue as her smoking plane crashed through a hole in the fabric of the universe. Guy Gardner, _the Warrior_ , he was called. The future had arrived overnight, it seemed, and with it came flying women in red and blue and men with skin of steel and the strength to end all wars.

She tried to stay and fight with Guy Gardner, but it wasn’t long before she was sucked back into the same tear in time and space she’d arrived through. There, she floated through that void of neither future nor past for what felt like hours, but when she finally made it through, she learned it had really been _years_. When she found Guy Gardner again, it was during a time of celebration—the opening of his bar, Warriors. Surrounded by countless heroes Zinda had no hope of recognizing, she was quick to be overwhelmed, but Guy welcomed her with open arms. Dressed in a white suit instead of the lobster-like armor she had previously known him in, he looked different now, happier. Guy offered her both a job at his new establishment and a place to stay without hesitation. She’ll always be grateful for the kindness he’s given her throughout the years.

The year was 1996. She learned the ordeal they now called ‘Zero Hour’ had occurred two years ago. The war, _her_ war, had ended 50 years ago. They told her they’d won, but was a victory at the cost of six million Jewish lives really a victory at all? Six million people like her. It made Zinda sick to her stomach.

Working for Warriors gave her a purpose in her time of unbalance. They needed someone who could fly an aircraft and was good in a fight, both of which were Zinda’s area of expertise. It was so easy to devote herself to Guy, the first person she’d met when being thrust into the future. It was better that way, when she didn’t have to worry about where her place was in the rest of the world. The only thing that mattered was if she could land the helicopter safely and provide backup when needed, but they valued each other’s friendship more than anything.

Guy quickly became her best friend and confidant in her new and confusing life. Not long after she’d joined his crew at Warriors, he invites her to celebrate Purim with him. Zinda had burst into tears, overjoyed that Guy would even ask. It is truly a night to remember—they end up in the kitchen arguing about which filling for the hamentashen cookies was better, the ones filled with the kosher marshmallow fluff that Zinda had found or the strawberry jam and chocolate chip filling Guy had put in his. The conversation gets so heated that they fail to pay attention to the oven, and thus Guy burns the hamentashen. They eat them anyways, laughing till tears roll down their faces. For four more years, Zinda let herself be the Lady Blackhawk Guy Gardner needed, and in return, Guy helped her come to terms with the future that had become her present.

It was the year 2000 now, and Zinda finally felt ready to find her own life in this time. She’d changed so much in the past four years, almost as much as the world around her. She was still Lady Blackhawk, only now she was the _only_ Blackhawk. Some days, it was easier to accept that than others. She’d also learned much about herself, too; Zinda had finally found the word for her wistful glances at pretty girls like Penny Van Camp and the floaty feeling the other girl had given her. She was a lesbian, and there wasn’t a thing wrong with that despite what her upbringing had taught her. Zinda kept that word close to her, not yet ready to shout it out to the world, but to have it, to _know_ what it was that she’d been feeling towards women her entire life, was a bigger relief than she could have ever imagined. Guy was the first to know. Someday she’d tell everybody.

But for now, she decides to start a new life for herself. She’d been contacted by Blackhawk Industries, a global shipping company and seemingly the only thing left of the beloved team she once knew. They’re based out of Gotham, the city in which she grew up. She hasn’t been back there since before the war. Guy had offered to take her more than once, but she’d declined each time, saying she wasn’t ready to see what had become of the streets she’d been raised on. Now, it seems like the ideal setting for a fresh start.

She accepts the job offer, not really caring what kind of work she’ll be doing as long as it can give her some sort of connection to her world of the past. As it turns out, Zinda owns about one eighth of the company. She never understood the stock market enough to know how that happened, but she doesn’t see the need to question it.

It’s not what she expected.

First, they try giving her an office job. Zinda has always had much too much energy for cubicles and paperwork, and the padded chair they gave her feels more like a prison. Eventually she raises enough of a ruckus about ‘disrespecting your elders’ that they are forced to find her another job to do.

The people of Blackhawk Industries might think they’re being subtle, but Zinda sees the way they gawk at the length of her skirt and widen their eyes at her unapologetic swearing. She gets memo after memo of ‘company policies’ and ‘personal complaints.’’ She shreds them without a second thought. Zinda should have known they’d want to keep a free bird tied down. They never wanted her to be Zinda Blake, war hero and inadvertent founder of their company. Hell, they won’t even let her fly a plane! All they’d ever wanted was a PR showgirl to pose for appearances.

Lady Blackhawk is no one’s showgirl.

Freedom comes in the form of Dinah Lance, a pretty blonde woman in a long dark duster who smiled at the bartender and ordered them two glasses of whiskey as she slide into the empty side of Zinda’s booth. Zinda knew immediately that this woman was anything but ordinary. She has the grace of a model and a friendly smile, but the muscles that ripple as she moves exclude nothing but power. She’s a weapon of a woman, just like Zinda.

She introduces herself as Dinah, the Black Canary. Zinda had always thought hero-types meant to keep their civilian lives a secret, but not Dinah. Dinah wears her hero lifestyle with pride, and Zinda finds herself sucked into her orbit. Dinah offers her a job as a pilot for her small band of vigilantes, and Zinda says yes without a second thought.

Then, she steals a plane.

Blackhawk Industries has plenty to spare, anyhow. And as far as Zinda’s concerned, they owe her for keeping her shackled to a desk for so long.

Among the Birds of Prey, Zinda finds the family she’s been aching for. There’s Helena, with her sharp tongue and even sharper arrows, Barbara, with her lightning fast wit as she protects them all from behind her screen, and Dinah. Dinah, with her Canary Cry capable of toppling entire buildings but a heart so full of love that she never would. Zinda loves them. Zinda is _in_ love with them. They’re her Birds, her girls, her family, her lovers. They have her back and she has theirs.

But good things never last forever, and, just she’d always feared, her world falls apart. Barbara disbands the Birds, ending both their working relationship and their romantic one. Zinda is devastated; she’s built her entire _world_ around these wondrous women. Too much of a good thing really _can_ be dangerous.

After their downfall at Platinum Flats, the Birds each walk their separate ways. Dinah will always have her family with Oliver Queen. Helena has Charlie now, the energetic young girl they’d taken under their wings. Zinda had never wanted kids, but she’s come to see Charlie as her own daughter. Babs will have the Bats and her father, and Zinda will have no one. She’s as alone now as she was the day she left Guy Gardner behind.

She doesn’t call him, though. She’s determined to make it through this trial on her own.

Without Oracle in her ear, Zinda isn’t quite sure how to be a vigilante, so she searches for work elsewhere. Oddly enough, work comes to her. She’s scouted on the street by a woman claiming to be a talent agent and she asks Zinda if she’s ever thought about being an actress. Zinda accepts her offer with every ounce of enthusiasm in her body. She’s going to be an _actress!_

Of course she’s starred in wartime pictures before, but modern cinema is vastly different than the films of the 1940’s. It’s a steep learning curve, to say the least. She has some name recognition as Lady Blackhawk, but not enough. Her agent has her auditioning for all kinds of roles, but the ones Zinda likes best are period pieces. Hand her a script for a mid-20th-century woman, and she is in her element.

The scripts for the dialogue they give her are riddled with historical inaccuracies, so Zinda might change a phrase here and there to make it true to the time. The casting directors, however, never seem to agree with her artistic liberty. It’s one rejection after another.

It’s truly befuddling to Zinda; why cast for a 1940’s gal if they don’t want a _real_ woman of the era? Her manager makes her agree to tone it down, follow the script, but all her life Zinda’s been more for burning the pages than following some predestined role.

Needless to say, her acting career is on its last rope. Zinda doubts the Birds have struggles like this. She misses them with all of her being. She misses Dinah’s warm hugs and Charlie’s high-pitched laughter. She misses when Helena would share her family’s Italian recipes and Babs’ snarky comments on every scientific inaccuracy whenever they’d have movie nights. She misses her _family_.

She just hopes they miss her too.

**Author's Note:**

> jesus i cant believe i just wrote over 2k words without a single speck of dialogue. sorry yall.  
> title comes from RIP 2 my youth by the neighborhood cause it has been and always will be a zinda song


End file.
